Colors of My Life
by Musashi
Summary: Rufus Shinra was not born the way he is seen in the game...
1. Drops of Red

Colors of Life

···Drops of Red···

Drops of red hit white paper, slowly dripping from the source, staining the fivers. The steady plop, plop, plop fascinated the azure-eyed child that watched.

With a delighted laugh, the boy pushed his fingers through the pile of red goop, smearing the paint in haphazard swirls across the paper. He looked up into the smiling face above him, into the pale, laughing blue eyes, the aristocratically-shaped face framed by curls of gold. His mother laughed.

"Blue!" the child said. His mother complied, and drops of blue began hitting the slickness of red. The boy squealed and attacked the paint, blue mixing with red and gradually turning purple.

"Mommy!" He reached up, his small hands red and blue and violet as he patterd her smooth, pale cheeks. She laughed again, dabbing a bit of the paint from her cheek onto his nose. He twitched it, trying to see the spot.

"Little Rufy," his mother said affectionately, ruffling his orange-tinted blond hair.

~

Rufus Shinra, almost seven years old now, hid in the spacious walk-in closet his parents shared.

"Krista..." His mother's name, his father's voice, sounded gravely from the other side of the closet door. The boy backed into a hanging rack of clothes on his mother's side of the closet, slipping into a white coat as he did so.

His parents' voices, low and angry, came through the door and clothes. None of the words could be made out, but the tones were enough to make the child want to cry.

A third voice joined the others, and the boy's curiosity perked. He crept to the closet door, pulling the coat tight around his underdeveloped form. He put his face to the crack between the doors and peered out.

His father stood next to a young woman--a girl of nineteen, although Krista could tell that better than her son could--with greenish yellow hair and wearing a vivid red dress.

"You've been--?" Krista stared incredulously at her husband.

"Yes. But it is no more than you have been doing, is it, you slut?"

The lady in red called to someone in the next room, then laughed. Rufus's eyes wided as two blue-uniformed guards entered, a man with tousled, light brown hair handcuffed between them. 

"You," the president said, pointing at the girl in the red dress. "Get out."

She pouted, then stalked out.

"Rufus, boy, where are you?"

The child shrank away from the door. He didn't like the way his father had said his name.

"Krista..." A warning tone.

"Rufie..." She sounded as though she would cry. "Come here, baby."

Hesitantly, Rufus emerged from the closet and walked over to his mother. Before he could reach her, however, his father grabbed him, picked him up.

"Rufus, son, do you know who this man is?"

"No, Daddy."

"Your mommy has been doing bad things with this man."

"Mommy doesn't do bad things."

His father shook him, once, hard. "Yess, boy, she does! She does very bad things!"

Rufus looked at his mother. Tears were streaming down her face. He looked back to his father. "It must have been an accident, Daddy."

The president laughed. "Yes, Rufus, what she did was an accident. You are going to fix Mommy's accident."

There was a quiet click.

"No," Krista sobbed.

Rufus blinked at the gun his father had put into his small hand. He looked up as he was set on his feet.

"Krista, stand behind him," the president said, waving at the brown-haired man. Still crying, she complied. "Now, Rufus. Point your gun at that man's chest and pull the trigger."

"But, daddy--"

"DO IT!"

"You are a sick man, Shinra," the man between the guards spat. "Putting your sins on your son..."

"Do it, Rufus."

The child did as his father commanded, aiming the gun and pulling the trigger.

Several things happened in that quick instant.

Even as he pulled the trigger, the child's arms drooped from the weapon's weight, lowering the aim to the man's stomach...

The man twisted, grabbing the gun from the belt of one of his captors and shooting that guard...

Krista darted to the side...

The other guard, acting on a motion from the president, drew his gun to shoot the captive should the child's bullet miss...

Three bullets were fired at two targets in half a second.

Three of the six occupants in the room fell in the next half of that second.

The prisoner was nicked in the side by Rufus's shot. That bullet continued through the air to hit Krista's upper thigh. The bullet shot from the prisoner's hand killed the guard, blowing a chunk out of his skull. The other guard's shot pierced the brown-haired man's heart, killing him.

Rufus dropped the gun and ran to his mother, paying no attention to any of the others in the room. Her hands were pressed to the wound in her leg, and he put his over them. "Mommy..."

"I'm okay, Little Rufie..."

The boy looked at the red fluid on his small hands. "Mommy, you've got paint leaking out..."

Krista lovingly ruffled her son's hair, a sad smile on her face. A drop of blood rolled down his cheek to splatter on the coat as his father cam up behind him and pushed him roughly to the side.

Rufus looked at the guard who had just re-entered the room, having removed to the bodies, then looked back to his parents.

"I want you to get out of here," the president hissed to his wife. "I never want to see you again, and I never want to see that bastard child you are carrying." The orange-haired man backed away and looked to the guard. "get her out."

"Rufie..."

"No. Rufus stays with me." The man glared fiercely at the guard. "What are you waiting for!?"

The uniformed man moved forward and helped Krista to her feet, then picked her up when her leg started to give out. He carried her out of the room, leaving a trail of blood droplets, a revenged husband, and a distraught young boy in a blood-spattered white coat.

~

Um.. ew. I don't know what happened to my muse at the end there. Hey! Review, please. I have a part two and some ideas for a part three, but I need to know that you want them. Come on, people! (And stop voting on the first section of BotB! It's OVER!)


	2. Silver Lining

Colors of My Life

~~~Silver Lining~~~

He wasn't quite sure what he was looking at. The garishly-lit, rain-misted city of eternal night... The drops running down the glass... The reflection of his own face superimposed over it all.

_I claim you, Midgar. You are mine._

He lifted one hand and traced the reflection of his eyes. They still looked odd... He wasn't used to seeing them glow.

He pressed his palm to the glass, glaring at the childish size of it. At fourteen, he was the size of an average eleven-year-old.

"Rufus."

The glowing blue orbs shifted from his hand to the reflection of the young man who had come up behind him, as silent as alway. Green-tinted blue eyes glowed as brightly as Rufus's own now did, peering out from beneath the shoulder-length, shaggy-layered silver hair.

"Hello, Sephiroth." Rufus had already taken to using a rather aloof tone to make himself seem older than his underdeveloped body suggested to those who were older than he was.

"What are you thinking about?" The sixteen-year-old put his hand on the smaller boy's shoulder.

Rufus relaxed a bit, both in body and in tone. "This is my city..."

"Yes?"

"I will have this city in the palm of my hand, and I will crush my father!"

"Lower your voice, Rufus. Your father does not consider you indispensible."

Rufus shrugged the other's hand off. "How would you know!?"

"I heard him talking to Hojo before your operation." Sephiroth brushed his hand under one of Rufus's eyes, and the boy sighed.

"What's it like, Sephiroth?"

"What is what like?"

"What is it like to get special treatment because you are an Ancient?"

"What is it like to get special treatment because you are the vice-president?"

Rufus sighed again. "Oh. I wish I was just treated like a normal child."

"I wish I were as well. But, at least we have each other. We are very much alike."

"But for how long will we have each other? I heard that Hojo and Heideggar have planned to put you full-time with SOLDIER soon..."

"...And there is no telling what your father may have planned for you."

"I know." Rufus turned and grabbed both of Sephiroth's hands. "Let us make a promise, that we will always be friends, and never forget each other, no matter what."

Sephiroth turned his hands so that his fingers and the other boy's locked together. "It sounds like an excellent idea."

~

Rufus pressed his hands over the ears of the headset in an effor to further muffle the sounds of the helicopter blades. He was slumped in his seat, staring listlessly straight ahead.

"Last chance to see the ShinRa building, sir," the pilot's voice said in his ears.

With a sigh, Rufus straightened in his seat and looked out the window, then down at the helipad.

His father had gone back inside already--typical...--and another figure had taken his place. Rufus couldn't make out the man's face from that distance, but the waistlength silver hair, glittering in the spotlights that illuminated the helipad, was a dead giveaway.

The boy felt a pang of regret as Sephiroth lifted one bare arm in an almost-wave. The man had, as usual, neglected to wear a shirt under the trenchcoat that was now lying at his feet, and Rufus _was_ able to see the movement of muscles in the twenty-year-old's naked chest.

Rufus slumped in his seat again, deciding not to torture himself further.

"Something wrong?" Tseng asked, his voice clear in the headset, his expression showing concern.

Rufus shook his head. Although there _was_ something wrong, he wasn't going to tell Tseng. It would do no good. Sephiroth's high-ranked position in SOLDIER meant that he needed to be stationed at headquarters. As much as the vice-president would have loved the arrangement, a transfer to Junon was impossible.

The future stretched before the eighteen-year-old as a bleak, featureless gray plane. He could see no silver linings to this cloud--the silver lining was behind him.

A/N: Ah, full of hidden meanings... Open to interpretation, although I did put it down as a solid story, with one true "what's going on" in mind. There is a sort of signifigance to the ages, and if you look ahead to the game, and correlate this one with the last one, there're a few more of my theories visible. ^-^ I like to make my readers think. And I LOVE to get feedback! Thanks to everyone who reviewed part one. Please feel free to make suggestions for part three. Poor Rufie needs colors other than gray in his life. ~ Anberu "Musashi" Roquet  



	3. Green Eyes

A

A/N: This one is waaaaay too long compared to the first two. ^-^ I can't write short stories, so nyah!!!  
Warnings: Undisguised shounen-ai (Rufus/Sephiroth); uncensored foul-mouthing (Reno); fighting, violence, blood 'n' stuff; arrogant snottiness (Rufus, duh); simpering mushiness (Rufus again. O_o..).

Colors of My Life

***Green Eyes***

Paper. A petition for... SOLDIERs' training sessions to be limited to nighttime, after curfew, or to be moved from the city streets. Trash.

Another paper. What's this one? A bill. Dumping in the harbor waters forbidden; sign on the dotted lign please.

The paper was crumpled by the slim hand clad in the fingerless glove, crumpled and tossed into the trashcan out of pure spite.

Small yellow squares; phone message.

You father called; your work is awful.

_That means we're running at max efficiency._

Heideggar called; a detachment of SOLDIERs will be sent to Junon for last-minute training before shipment to Wutai.--

_Shipment? Are they humans or boxes of guns?_

--Please meet them at the airport; a speech for encouragement would be appreciated.--

_A speech. Bah. Not to SOLDIERs. Make horse-face speak his own speeches. _Pure annoyance now; he never could stand Heideggar. And the message was ridiculously long. Rufus reached for his tea and took a sip, making a mental note to fire his secretary and get one who could sum up a message in a single sentence.

--General heading troops will be Sephiroth.--

The young vice-president choked on the likewarm liquid. And spit tea onto the paper, blurring the blue ink of his secretary's favorite "Mako" pen. He could still read the name, however. It hadn't been his imagination.

--The plane will arrive in three days.--

_Not a lot of time._

--Tseng will arrive with new Turk recruits at 7 p.m.--

_Today!?_ Rufus glared at the clock on the cream-papered wall. 6:30.

--Make final selection and send back to Midgar for training ASAP.

Rufus crumpled the note, then smoothed it out again, careful not to smear any of the wet ink on his gloves or skin. Tseng and his recruits--Heideggar, the Turks, and Rufus's father usually narrowed the candidates down to four--would likely arrive by helicopter. Tseng would bring them to the meeting room for his approval.

"Hell... Sephiroth..." The idea of seeing his friend and once-lover again after almost two years apart quickly chased all thoughts of Turks from his mind.

He saw Sephiroth in his mind then, saw him as he had last seen him, standing shirtless under the glare of spotlights on the helipad, long silver hair blowing in the wind from the helicopter blades...

Something he had kep locked away inside of him broke then as his stomach twisted into knots and his heart threatened to break at the poignant, bittersweet memory. Rufus couldn't hold back a near-silent sob, and a tear escaped to roll down his pale cheek.

~

Plush.

That was the first word that came to mind when trying to describe the meeting room. It was practically identical to the meeting room in the Shin-Ra Headquarters in Midgar, with a long dark table lined with cushion chairs on the long sides and a single chair at the head, behind which three large windows gave a spectacular view of the ocean. The carpet was a rich maroon, and thick enough to make each step a disturbance as feet sank at least half an inch.

Four people, three young men and a young woman, were lined up at the end of the table, nervously watching the blonde vice-president in the chair at the head. A bored expression was on Rufus's face. Tseng stood just to the right of the chair.

"This is the best you could find?"

"Yes sir."

"They look like a bunch of pathetic children," Rufus spat. He was actually younger than all of them, but they didn't know that because of how he acted. It was only three years for the largest difference, after all.

"Each of them has proven advanced fighting skill against a SOLDIER, First Class."

"Oh, really?" Rufus appeared to be a bit more interested now.

"Yes sir."

"Hm. Well." He smirked. "Sephiroth and a squad of SOLDIERs are coming here for training. We'll see how your recruits stand against them." Rufus stood, signalling that the "interview" was over.

Tseng moved to teh recruits and motioned for them to file out. Three of the recruits, two men and the woman, immediately turned and walked out in perfect, almost military, step. The remaining recruit--a young man with unkempt red hair and piercing green eyes, who looked very out of place in the starved uniform--glared defiantly at the Turk leader.

Rufus watched, his curiosity piqued, as Tseng discreetly drew a gun and spoke to the man in low, sharp tones. The vice-president recalled that this particular recruit had been the only not fidgetting nervously during the interview.

"Tseng. Wait."

The Turk leader turned. "Sir?"

"Go. I will handle this."

"But--"

"GO."

Tseng narrowed his eyes, then saluted smartly and left the room, closing the door silently behind himself.

The recruit's eyes moved to Rufus as the white-clad young man moved around the table.

"What's your name?" the vice-president inquired.

"reno."

"Why did you not follow orders?"

"Tseng's full of shit. He's nothing but an ass-kisser. That's the only reason he has the cushy job he's in."

Rufus lifted an eyebrow slightly. "How did you make it through selection with such... strong opinions?" _And such a lack of respect or restraint._

"I whipped Rude, I whipped every SOLDIER they sent at me, and your daddy thinks the Turks need my spirit," Reno sneered.

Rufus shook his head. "You'll never make it as a Turk, Reno. Even if I give you my approval, Rude and Devon would tear you apart once their lives depended on your doing a decent job."

Reno pressed his lips tightly together, his narrow, attractive face darkening as his wiry frame shook with repressed anger.

Rufus stepped closer so that they were nose-to-nose. They were the same height, and rufus realized with a start that the boy was probably younger than he, despite his first impression. "How old are you?" Rufus demanded.

A spark of confusion appeared in Reno's eyes. "Eighteen."

Rufus moved back a bit. "Go. You'll be tested when the SOLDIERs arrive, just like everyone else."

Reno narrowed his eyes, then spun on his heel and stalked out. Rufus saw Tseng grip the boy's arm and lead him off, already starting the lecture the vice-president knew would come.

"He does have a great deal of spirit,"Rufus said aloud, speaking to the hidden machine which recorded everything that happened in the meeting room. "However, that is not always a good thing. We'll see how he does against Sephiroth."

~

The phone beside his bed rang insistently, obnoxiously loud. One hand shot out from beneath the covers, fingers groping for a snooze button without realizing that it was not the alarm that was ringing. He pushed the large speaker button and withdrew his hand as the ringing stopped.

"Mr. Shinra, sir?" Tseng's voice. _Bah_.

"What?" Rufus growled, voice muffled by the blanket over his head.

"The SOLDIERs arrived an hour ago--"

"WHAT!?" Rufus sat straight up, the covers falling together at his waist.

"It is five in the afternoon, sir." Rufus looked to his clock. It was flashing 12:00. "Sephiroth had agreed to testing the recruits against his SOLDIERs, but Reno has been missing since last night."

The slightly opened door caught the young VPs attention.

"What do you want us to do, sir?"

"Um... Send Sephiroth and the First Class and your recruits to the training arena with instructions to wait. Send someone to find Reno. I'll be down in..." He scooped up the watch on the table and looked at the face, noting the time. "...Ten minutes."

"Yes sir." The line went dead, and Rufus pushed the speaker button to hang the phone up. Then, with a sigh, he moved to the closet to get dressed.

He stared for a long moment at the limited selection of clothing. He had an absurd number of multiples of the same outfit, with a very few other articles of clothing. A brief moment of insanity allowed him to break out of his usual pattern and dress light in a black tank top and jeans, a white trenchcoat hanging open from his shoulders. He admired his reflection in the closet's full-length mirror as he pulled fingerless black gloves onto his hands. He tamed his hair with a comb, then opted for a light coating of hairspray instead of the usual bottle of gel.

"Pretty little prince..." The voice was quiet enough to be dismissed as imagination, but Rufus was looking around warily as he left the room, locking the door.

~

Rufus had just walked through the doorway to the training arena when Reno came running up to crash into him.

"Whoa! Sorry, sir!" Panicked, Reno picked himself up and ran to take his place with the other Turk candidates as the vice-president glared furiously at him. At the same time, Rufus wondered if Tsengs lecture had really caused such a drastic change in the boy's attitude.

Sephiroth stepped over and offered a hand to help Rufus to his feet. Their eyes locked as he pulled the younger man up, and Rufus was startled by the cold distance in the turquoise depths he had once known so well. Then, for an instant, Sephiroth's eyes warmed, and he smiled faintly. Rufus's face flushed, and he looked towards Tseng, who immediately looked away and pretended that he had not been watching.

Rufus cleared his throat and reluctantly freed his hand. "Thank you, Sephiroth." As the SOLDIER nodded, Rufus moved to the center of the arena, standing between the Turks and the SOLDIERs.

"For purposes of determining the skills of these candidates for Shin-Ra's Turks, each of these recruits shall engage in a one-on-one battle with a SOLDIER, no materia used." Rufus looked to the SOLDIER general. "Sephiroth, select three of your troops. You will battle Reno, they will battle the others."

Sephiroth nodded and began giving out orders to his subordinates. Tseng moved to Rufus, protesting.

"Sir, Reno is the youngest of the recruits. He doesn't have the skill to even survive against a warrior of Sephiroth's ability..."

"Reno seems to be confident in his ability. I will make sure that Sephiroth does not kill him."

"If you ar esure, sir."

"I am. Reno first."

"Yes sir." Tseng returned to the Turk side of the training arena, and Rufus stepped to Sephiroth.

"Sephiroth."

"Sir." The SOLDIER's voice was cool and formal, and something about the quality sent a thrill up Rufus's spine.

"You and Reno will battle first. Don't kill him, just humiliate him."

"...A grudge, sir?"

Rufus froze, denial on his lips, uncertainty in his mind. Why _did_ he feel such animosity towards the boy? "He needs to be brought down. He is too cocky, too sure of himself. He had no respect for authority."

"I understand."

"Reno!" Rufus called, heading for a chair on the sidelines. "You're first!"

The young man gripped the handle of a long, thin nightstick, knuckles white, and stared across at Sephiroth. The two moved to the center of the arena and assumed their battle stances. It was interesting to see the contrast: Sephiroth, sword up and ready, gazing along the deadly blade at his opponent; Reno, hanging back, nightstick at his side in a tense grip.

A split second later, the combatants were blurs, Reno moving with a speed that surprised both Sephiroth and Rufus, jabbing his weapon in at every opportunity, the SOLDIER hard-pressed to parry the blows. Sephiroth's Masamune was not made for battling in such close quarters, and Reno knew it, pushing for any possible advantage over the more experienced fighter.

Reno stabbed for Sephiroth's groin, pressing a button on the nightstick to make the air crackle and spark with electricity. The SOLDIER general brought his blade up under the weapon just in time, carrying it up over Reno's head, then slammed a foot into the Turk recruit's stomach, throwing him to his back on the floor.

Reno rolled and jumped to his feet, going on the defensive against the furious barrage of attacks Sephiroth launched, the boy being driven backwards by the man's unrelenting power.

Two serious blows made it to Reno's head, each one opening a gash beneath one of Reno's eyes. The boy stumbled back, hands over his eyes, blood coursing down his cheeks. He dropped to his knees.

Sephiroth, aware that the victory was his, walked over to check on his opponent. A cry of disbelief and pain was ripped from his throat as Reno savagely shoved the metal tip of his nightstick into the bare, unprotected skin of Sephiroth's abdomen. Electricity flowed through the SOLDIER's body at the press of a button, and he dropped to the floor.

Pleased that he had not completely lost, Reno gave in, curling up on the floor, pressing his hands to the gashes below his glazed green eyes and giving himself up to the darkness.

~

Phew! Finally. The writing of this part dragged on... and on... and on, especially when I hit the fight scene. Please review!

Preview warnings: Yaoi overtones in part 4. *wicked laugh*  



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